Hey again everyone. Here's another chapter. Please Read, Review, and Enjoy.
All nine members of the team woke up simultaneously as the alarm overhead blared out.
"Ugh. That went off way too early for me. What time is it?" Thorn asked.
"0600 hours. Let's go see what Offensive has been able to dig up. FERA, would you please send him a message that we're coming to visit him?" Maverick said.
"Sure thing." Her avatar winked out as she withdrew into her chip.
The team put on their armor and assembled their weaponry. As soon as they were ready, Maverick led them outside to a waiting transport truck. Once they were all in, the transport truck drove them to the cargo elevator of the lab. They all jumped out and entered, preparing for the long descent. Once in the elevator, they had about thirty minutes to kill.
Kat stood close to Jake. They had activated a private communications line and were talking through it. Landen was reviewing the previous day's battle on his tactical pad. He leaned over to Kreft and pointed out an anomaly in the enemy's maneuvering.
"Look. Ten minutes before the attack, the line was advancing steadily towards our position. Nine minutes, nothing had changed. At eight minutes they halted for a few seconds and then continued. Skip ahead and we see that several banshees peeled off at three minutes to conflict. We never see those banshees again. Now, I'm going to zoom in on the banshees that peeled off before the conflict. Nothing but a few smudges to show something on them. However, the other banshees do not have these smudges." He walked over to a data port and plugged his tactical pad in. "This will clear the image up. Look at it. What do you see?"
Kreft sucked in his breath. "Those were space banshees. They could be leaving to relay a message for help."
"Not likely. There were no larger ships out there, and they can't have traveled far. They don't have slipspace drives. However, they could hide in the asteroid field and attack when we're not expecting it."
Kreft accessed FLEETCOM and said to the admiral, "Sir, we have a situation. We are sending you a video from yesterday's conflict. There are several banshees that leave formation at three minutes to conflict. We have not seen them since. Search the system for possible signs of them. Destroy or capture them, but do not let them escape."
"Thank you, Kreft. I'll put some Sabres on it." The FLEETCOM connection winked out.
A few minutes later, the elevator shuttered to a halt. The door opened to reveal a solid wall. The level marker showed that they were still a hundred feet above the lab. Then the lights winked out. The emergency power allowed one data port to come on, but that was it. Kimberly rushed over to it.
"The power has been cut. External physical tampering, not hacked. Something is in the elevator housing unit."
Kreft scanned the space above them. "Buggers!" he shouted.
They all turned to the open door. Several of the insect like figures were huddled in the doorway, watching them. As soon as they were spotted, they opened fire. Kimberly huddled over the data port, determined to keep it from getting damaged. Kreft pulled out a sword and started slashing the Yan'me. When he killed one, he would toss the plasma pistols to the Spartans. They made short work of the swarm. When they were done, about fifty bodies lay on the floor. Still, the elevator hung there, immobilized. Kimberly transferred as much power as she could to it without shutting down the data port. The doors slowly closed and the elevator started to descend again. It was very slow going. They went down inch by inch. It took another thirty minutes for the elevator to get to the bottom.
When they arrived, the doors opened and Offensive floated in. If an A.I. in a floating case could look concerned, he did. "Where have you been? You were supposed to be here half an hour ago." Then he looked down. "Oh. I see you had company on the way down. Did they cut the power?"
"Yeah, they cut the power," Thorn answered.
"Aw, well. Please do follow me." Offensive floated down the hallway towards the top secret portion of the research facility. He entered a code and floated further into the area. In the very center of the room was a pedestal. The pedestal was mirrored on the ceiling by another pedestal. Energy pulses ran between the pedestals. The pillar was floating in it.
"I have discovered extensive forerunner influences in this piece of equipment. There is even a forerunner artifact in the core." He started to open the pillar and then pulled the core of the pillar out. He handed it to Maverick. "What do you see?" he asked.
"There's a ring of some sort at the very center. You can feel the energy radiation coming off of it."
Offensive took the core back. "That ring is thoroughly Forerunner in origin. It was used to power some of their equipment, including some of their more advanced A.I.'s. I have one just like it in me. My only conclusion is that they found an A.I. or ship and extracted this from it. This ring could power all of your suits tenfold for about two thousand years. It also contains a small portion of whatever it came from." He pulled a small chunk of metal out of the center of the ring. The metal had scorch marks on it. "I have closely examined each of your weapons. This damage to the metal was done by a Spartan laser about fifty years ago. In other words, when Master Chief destroyed 343 Guilty Spark, this was one of the things not completely destroyed. These power sources are virtually non-destroyable. It would take two or three Halos self-destructing around this to destroy it. The ring projects a small shield around whatever it is connected to. That is probably why it took as many shots as it did for Chief to kill 343. The Covenant must have recovered from the debris field after the ring was destroyed. The power signature alone would show up on any radar. Any ship passing through would have been able to see it."
"So what does that mean for us?" Kreft asked.
"This ring can be copied given the right amount of supplies, time, and skill. It is most likely that the Covenant have copied it and are using it in other endeavors. This could power one of their ships for a while, or add tremendous power to their weapons. We are lucky we have an original. Mistakes are amplified each time something is copied. It also tells us where they got the technology."
"Can we copy them and install them into out armor?" Jake asked, jumping at the idea.
"Most likely, yes. However, the supplies are not readily available. Though I suspect mining this planet for a day or two might reveal enough supplies to make several rings, more than enough for your armor. I believe there to be a Forerunner installation buried deep below the surface of this planet. It is also possible that it is the core of this planet. It was not uncommon for the Forerunners to turn installations into bare planets devoid of life to try and protect them from the flood. Meteorites would crash into the planet and release gasses, creating an atmosphere. Then micro organisms that inhabited the meteorites would evolve over the millennia, creating the planet that we are currently on. If this is the case, then we may be on a very important planet."
"Is there any way for us to get to the installation?" Sara asked.
"Yes. Actually, the entrance to the installation is not far from our current position. We could possibly go there in a few hours. First I need to extract this ring and give the schematics for it to your engineers. They need to get to work if they are going to build more of these." He floated out of the room, carrying the core.
"Well then, we need to get ready. If we're going on an exploration of an old Forerunner installation, we need to be prepared for flood, sentinels, or any other manner of nasty things," Maverick instructed. "Make sure your weapons are ready. Do you all still have your plasma pistols? We're going to need them if there are sentinels. They work quite well against them."
The group held up their plasma pistols in an affirmative. About that time, Offensive floated back into the room.
"The engineers are working already. I have ordered a mining drill be brought in so that we can get to the installation. It should be here in a few seconds." Right as he said this, the drill entered the room and rolled over to one wall. Offensive removed the wall panel and set it aside. "Please commence drilling. Our objective is 6 kilometers north of here about two kilometers down." The engineer running the drill set the angle and the drill started to dig. It did not take long for the drill to strike metal. The bit ground itself up on the wall then stopped. The group walked cautiously down the tunnel. "I do believe we have found the door," Offensive chuckled. The drill laid smoking beside the door, evidence of sentinel beams widely apparent.
Offensive floated over to the door and entered an access code. "We should be prepared for anything. I do not know what might be behind this door."
The group stood to either side of the door, guns ready. The door slid open. Thorn peeked around the doorframe, and then stepped fully into it. "Guys, you're going to want to see this." The rest of the team looked in. The hallway was filled with rows upon rows of very advanced cryo-units. They were very obviously Forerunner.
"Maybe they weren't all killed. Maybe some survived," Sara breathed.
The team checked each of the units for signs of life. Only one of them contained a body. Offensive floated over to it and entered a code into the access port. Steam shot out of the sides of the unit and the glass fogged up. The lid popped up and the fog dissipated. However, the body remained motionless.
"We may be too late. He has been in here for several thousand years. There is no telling whether or not he could survive such a period of time in a cryo unit."
Then the body stirred. A groan came from the mouth of the figure. He blinked his eyes. They were startlingly blue, as if the day and night sky and come together as one and filled his eyes. He was tall and slender, but not quite human. His body was covered in armor. Everyone could tell from the light in his eyes that he held great wisdom. He groaned again, then started to lift himself out of the cryo bay. He nodded towards Offensive, then realized that there were others in the room.
"Who are you?" he croaked. His voice was scratchy from not talking for so long. However, one could tell that his voice had once been beautiful, and would be once more. The Spartans stepped back in shock.
"You speak our language?" Jake asked.
"What species are you?" the Forerunner asked.
"We are humans. Homo Sapiens," Maverick answered.
"How did you get here?"
"We're stationed on a military installation on the surface above us."
"What year is this?"
"2602."
"Oh, this is not good. I was supposed to be revived from cryo a thousand years ago. What has happened since then?"
The Spartans looked at each other.
"We'll take you to our research lab. You can read up on what has happened," Sara said.
"We'll need to keep your existence a secret. Most humans think the Forerunners are extinct. Your existence could cause a galaxy wide panic," Maverick explained. "By the way, what is your name?"
"Romius."
"Well Romius, welcome to the 27th century."
A lot of Forerunner stuff here. If one survived, are there others? Find out in the next chapter.